


Head Case

by foreword



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/House, M.D. crossover
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-12
Updated: 2007-03-12
Packaged: 2018-04-24 02:15:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4901653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foreword/pseuds/foreword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a new patient at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, and Dr. Cameron is suffering from hypersomnia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head Case

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N** : This was written for [](http://raqs.livejournal.com/profile)[**raqs**](http://raqs.livejournal.com/) as a part of [](http://femslash07.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://femslash07.livejournal.com/)**femslash07** ! :D What an awesome pairing suggestion. I really liked the dream communication between Buffy and Faith and thought it would be great if Cameron got a little taste of it, too.  
> 

  
"Right. I'll take a blood sample again and check her vitals."

"I don't think that's really the best idea," Foreman said, but House stopped him from further objections.

"Don't invest too much in her, Cameron. We've got a more important case to work on."

She pretended not to hear him, sweeping out of the office and studiously ignoring any looks she was receiving from Chase and Foreman. She had to save this girl, and she couldn't begin to understand prioritizing patients.

Faith had been transferred to the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital earlier that week, after the Sunnydale Memorial Hospital in California had been unable to make any progress with the case. Faith had been stabbed, suffered from extreme blood loss and kidney damage, and had been made comatose by head trauma resulting from a fall. Faith had been healing at an extremely rapid rate, however, and doctors at Sunnydale Memorial were bewildered.

They'd asked Dr. House to monitor her condition closely, but she didn't think he was giving her the attention she deserved.

Dr. Cameron, however, was on it.

Today, Faith seemed to have a smile on her face. Her condition hadn't changed – she still had purple bruises marring her complexion, and she'd never opened her eyes, but her heart rate kept steady and today Cameron was sure that she was smiling.

"God, you're beautiful," she noted quietly, withdrawing a vial of the girl's blood. Her white cell count had been surprisingly high in the first sample—Cameron had never seen anything like this before, not even in leukemia patients, which Dr. Wilson assured her was not the case here.

_"Thanks, doctor C."_

Cameron started, glancing over her shoulder before staring down at Faith. She was sure that she was alone in here, but she was also sure she'd heard a voice. Faith remained motionless, however, her eyes closed and a smile playing at her lips as if she were having a particularly peaceful dream.

"Dr. Cameron?"

Startled, she looked over her shoulder again to find House watching her from the doorway. He was gripping his cane with two hands, watching her with a particularly pensive expression that Cameron suspected would get her into trouble.

"Yes?"

"Were you talking to her?"

Cameron opened her mouth to respond but closed it again, shaking her head as she released her grip on Faith's wrist, capping the vial and setting her arm delicately on the bed beside her.

"Who?" she asked awkwardly, staring at House in what she hoped looked like confusion.

"The comatose girl on the bed behind you," House muttered, with a touch of irritation.

"No, of course not."

House nodded, though she could tell by his expression that he didn't believe her.

"Come on, then. We've got a case of hypersomnia to work on. Everybody wants to sleep."

Cameron frowned but said nothing, and they left together, House shutting the door to the hospital room firmly behind them.

She wasn't sure when the dreams started, but she first noticed them after Faith's arrival. She would wake with a start, usually in the lab, and usually at times when she had no business sleeping.

And then she'd remember the dreams.

The dreams didn't feel like dreams, though—they were too real to be dreams. Yesterday, Faith had joined her in the lab to look at the results of her first blood test. Cameron remembered this vividly—she remembered how her heartbeat sped up, how Faith grinned at her, the way she toyed with the ties on the back of her hospital gown as if she'd like to tug them free. She remembered how strangely red Faith's lips were, and how dark her eyes looked. She remembered because she'd wanted nothing more than to kiss her.

"We'll play doctor some other time."

Faith teased her like that all week, always trying to make her blush and falter. She was worse than House, because Faith seemed to really _want_ her. She never belittled Cameron, but sometimes she touched her; delicate swipes of her fingers against Cameron's cheek, always promising in a soothing voice that it would be all right. Yesterday, she pressed her lips to Cameron's forehead, and Cameron woke up in a hospital bed.

Cameron knew these had to be dreams, because Faith had always been asleep. She had been here for one week now, and nothing had changed. But everything had changed for Dr. Cameron.

"They're going to make me leave you."

Cameron nearly toppled the stool she was perched on, spinning around to find Faith standing in the empty lab, watching her. She wasn't smiling today, and she didn't look like a patient anymore. Faith was wearing dark blue jeans, a leather jacket and a white t-shirt stained with blood.

"But you're not better yet!"

Faith tilted her head and dropped her gaze as she stepped up to Dr. Cameron, and Cameron's breath caught in her throat in expectation of her touch. Instead, Faith looked up at her, her fingers clenching around the air near Cameron's hair, never touching it.

"You're getting worse, so I have to go. Don't you get it? Don't you see? You're a headcase. I'm only making things worse."

Cameron shook her head, and Faith smiled apologetically, kissing her forehead again and giving her a wink.

"I'd totally tap that, you know. If I didn't have to leave..."

Cameron blushed furiously, and tried to tell Faith that she didn't, couldn't leave her, but it was too late—she was in a hospital bed again, and she knew without asking that Faith was gone. Dr. House was taking blood from her arm, and it took a few moments for the strangeness of his actions to register.

"What are you doing?"

House looked up in surprise, needle cap clenched in his teeth. "Oh, how nice of you to join us," he muttered around the plastic, and in the next moment he'd capped the sample he stole, quickly pressing his fingers to Cameron's throat to check her pulse. "I'm trying to save your life, Dr. Cameron, but you're making it awfully difficult."

Cameron stared up at him. "What… I just… I fell asleep, I guess. I'm not _dying_."

House didn't respond immediately, and there was something strange about the way he looked down at her, something in his gaze that wasn't normal. "Head trauma from hypersomnia. There's something wrong with your brain, and if we don't figure out _what_ , you will be _dying_."

" _Head trauma_?" Cameron asked incredulously. She moved to touch her fingers to her head, but House stopped her before she could examine it, gripping her arm with surprising force.

"Don't. You had a fall, last week in the lab, and bumped your head on some sharp metal. Dr. Foreman seems to think this was a pre-existing condition that's been exacerbated by the fall, but I think it's probably best if you don't poke around at the wound in the meantime."

Cameron nodded weakly and House winced. "Don't nod. And… _stay_."

She watched, tight-lipped, as he limped his way out of her hospital room, a vial of her blood clenched in his fist.

There was laughter somewhere nearby, and Cameron smiled as she recognized it as Faith's. Maybe she hadn't left yet. "I'll miss you," she whispered to an empty room.

_"When we wake up, I'll find you."_

Cameron smiled and closed her eyes. Asleep or awake, she'd see Faith soon.


End file.
